Disclaimers and "Just Being Honest"

Have you ever noticed that whenever someone utters the words "No offense, but..." or "Nothing against you, but..." the most rude, tactless, arrogant, offensive, hurtful things follow? Why do people think that the weak, and often insincere, statement that their words aren't intended to hurt makes this behavior acceptable? And why, oh why, is it always followed with the excuse "I'm just trying to be honest"?

I have a student in one of my classes who does this repeatedly. Makes me nuts, because I have an immediate, emotional reaction to her words, even though I know they are intended to be manipulative - giving her the illusion of power and control. I've severed ties with (former) friends because of this kind of behavior. Hate it. Hate it.

And yet... I've been guilty of the same behavior. Of course, that was in HIGH SCHOOL, when I was fantastically unhappy and pretty much oozing that misery wherever I went. So, I've been thinking about why people act this way - why they shield their abusive talk behind the words "just being honest". For me, I think it was a reaction to all the things that were never talked about in my house growing up (like my father's alcoholism and denial about it), and my reaction to the way my mother handled it (very passive-agressive). Being brutally honest was a way to distance myself from that mess - I wasn't going to pretend things weren't what they were. I wasn't going to say one thing when I meant another.

And so, knowing this about myself, I wonder what's going on with people who couch their harsh comments with pillows of "No offense, but" and "Nothing against, you personally". What pain are they in to stab other people with tactless barbs? What relief do they get from seeing their listener flush with embarrassment and/or defensiveness? I don't know. With friends or acquaintances, I can either probe for details, or run for the hills. With students... I'm stuck. The ones who say stuff like this are usually the ones who aren't interested in conversing outside of class oriented information. I can't get rid of them - often they're among the brighter students in the class - so I don't necessarily want to get rid of them. But.


Anywho.


Heading out tomorrow morning for a long weekend in New York state at Jay's dad's "cabin". "Cabin" because the so-called cabin is at least twice as big as our apartment. Next week is winter break, so I won't be in the office late next week. Yay!

It's contagious

My students are giving me ADD. That's Attention Deficit Disorder, for the acronymically challenged. I used to be able to work on one thing until it was finished, and then move onto the next thing until that was finished, and so on. Now? Notsomuch.

Let's see... my current projects in progress....

1. Book on tape (currently - The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver), to be listened to at the gym while on the boring cardio machines so I don't have to listen to the grunting of students/staff/faculty in the tiny campus gym, or to the questionable musical selections that the work study student puts on.

2. Nonfiction book - Salt: A World History read before bed to make me want to be sleeping, and also as an interesting research into how economies are formed. (Good for realistic fantasy worldbuilding)

3. Fiction book - been doing a little researchy type fiction reading - other epic fantasy novels and whathaveyou. Just finished A Game of Thrones and have started The Black Jewels trilogy.

4. Turtleneck Shrug, my most recently started knitting project. I'm using Cascade 220 in the color "Provence". So far, I've got one sleeve done. Started this on Tuesday, expect to have it done by Sunday.

5. Felted bag - no pattern, just used some of the techniques from Folk Bags and Felted Knits to piece it together. This still needs to have buttons attached, but it only finished drying out this morning. It's made in Lamb's Pride Bulky in the colors "limeade" and "brite blue". I cringe at the spelling, but love the color anyway. Someday I will get my act together and post pictures.

6. Cozy wrap using Cherry Tree Hill in blues and greens. I started this at the beginning of the month. Have about 18 inches done. Finished length should be about 65 inches. No idea when it will be finished.

7. Shamefully abandoned projects - long, skinny, sport weight baby alpaca scarf for me. The yarn makes me sneeze. I started it in October, have picked it up a few times since then, and am about 2/3 of the way through. Will finish it some day. Probably. Also, 1 sock. I will probably never make the second sock. I should just tear out the first one and do something else with the yarn. Someday.

8. Add in a sprinkling of working on my own writing, completing critiques for other people, and that pesky thing called "a job", and it's small wonder that I don't really notice my lack of a social life most of the time. And why I sometimes don't update the blog for days and days at a time...

Anyway... it is getting dark and I am still at work. So not what I intended for this evening.

(OH - and that package finally did make its appearance to K2. I will have to ask her to take pictures and send them to me, because I forgot to photograph them before sending them...)

A few thoughts

I don't have the patience, attention span, or desire to spend much time at the computer just now, so I'll just say this:

The Vagina Monologues - funny, fabulous, highly memorable.

Jay's reaction to The Vagina Monologues - priceless.

If it's going to be this damn cold, at least we could get some snow, eh? Just sayin.

"Vermonter" seems to be a close synonym to "wildly eccentric". I think I like that about Vermont.

I dreamt about a trip to the yarn store near Burlington. It was a good dream. Yarn... mmmmmm.

Marital Static, or Yes, Electroshock Therapy Does Work

Things have been so dry up here lately that I am constantly getting little shocks during the day. ZAP. Ouch. Dammit. Shock my hand, okay, I can cope. But some parts are just a little more sensitive than others. (Get your minds out of the gutter - it's getting crowded enough with just me here.)

So Jay, an oddly cuddly man considering his utter lack of body fat, loves to just kiss me all the time. (No, I'm not really complaining.) Just a little peck on the lips, just a "you love me, right?" sort of validation, I suppose. Unfortunately, static and little smootches on the lips don't really go all that well together. About 80% of the time, I get a little current discharged into my tender, and usually chapped, lips. ZAP. Ouch. Dammit. It's gotten so bad that the second he leans in, I instinctively lean away. Last night he leaned over and said "Gimme a kish" (because he was already puckered up), and I shuddered and ducked my head. This can't be healthy.

Anyone know a good static buster for the house?

ZAP. Ouch. Dammit.

As excuses go

So today I was thinking I would finally see how many of my pictures I could load onto my USB drive to bring to work to upload to my new Flickr account. However, as I stood behind my dear, sweet husband at his computer, looking at pictures, he showed me a few from the holidays that I hadn't seen yet.

*looking at a picture of me on xcountry skis in really odd lighting*

Me: Gah. Delete that one, will you. I look deformed.

Jay: Okay, but you kind of are.

Me: Kind of are what?

Jay: Deformed.

*silence*

Jay: What? Where are you going?

Timing

My father, hard core Pittsburgher, longtime Steelers fan, won the lottery at his work for the chance to buy two Super Bowl tickets. He and one of his best friends (my godfather) got to go to Detroit to see the game. And the Steelers won.

I'm guessing now would be a good time to ask the man for just about anything... how much better could his mood get, I ask you?

Too bad I can't think of a darn thing...

A fan by any other name?

I have never really considered myself a "fan" of anything in particular. Fandom, in my mind, has always been linked to mindless adulation, especially the kind that includes lots of squealing or body painting... I always had an extremely hard time writing essays about "what are you a fan of?" or "who is your idol?" or other such nonesense. I think my favorite essay was one I had to write in CCD back in 3rd or 4th grade. The subject was "Is Jesus your hero, why or why not?" I, of course, said I didn't think he was, and went on to give reasons why he wasn't particularly relevant to the things I was interested in. Heh. My poor catechism teacher. I found that essay this past summer while digging through a stash of my old papers in my parents' attic.

Of course, I didn't think the fact that I read every single Trixie Belden book or all of Lois Duncan's work, etc. had anything to do with being a fan. I read them because I liked them, and I liked them because they were good. Fans were people who got all excited about some sports team or tv show, even if the team always lost or the show was stupid. Clearly, I didn't have a very good opinion of fans, so there was no way I could clas myself as a fan of anything. Anyway. I think I'm becoming less jaded as I age. Thank goodness, I know, I know.

Last month, while Jay was off doing something crazy like climbing a mountain in the rain, I rented the movie Serenity - the SF movie by Joss Whedon based off the series Firefly that got cancelled before I had a chance to see it. I. Loved. This. Movie. I'm not even sure I can explain what I loved about it. It just got so many things right - the pacing, the backstory, the characters. I loved it so much that I did something that I have never done before and can't really imagine doing again. I put on the director's commentary and watched the whole thing again. And then I wouldn't let Jay watch it when he got home because I didn't want him to ruin it for me.

But it doesn't end there. I decided that I was clearly missing some pretty good stuff by cutting off TV wholesale. So I signed up for Netflix. (Yes, finally.) And I've got the Firefly tv series in my queue so I can see more. Once the floodgates opened, I found myself queuing up all sorts of TV shows - Band of Brothers, from HBO, South Park from Comedy Central, The Office from the BBC... the list goes on.

So maybe, just a little bit, I might, possibly, sort of, I suppose, understand what the whole "fan" thing is about.

Rated for Language

Not too long ago, I received a critique for a chapter of my current work in progress in which the critter took offense to my "salty" language. (Yes, that's how he described it.) The grounds for his objection were that fantasy worlds shouldn't include swearing and that fantasy publishers didn't want foul language in the books they published. CS Lewis and Tolkien were cited as examples. (Because they're current, and all. *cough cough*) He claimed that he read fantasy to read about pure and noble characters who made sacrifices for the greater good, and not for lowbrow swearing.

Because I try not to scare off the newbies, I merely thanked the critter for his effort and mentioned that he might not enjoy my work if he was looking for purity and nobility of mind and spirit.** I'm more interested in how people react under pressure and how human beings cope with horrible events. Because I'm evil, that's why. Because purity of spirit bores me to tears, for another.

This is not to say that my characters (or I) curse incessantly. I'd say there's a few who never curse at all. But to say that cursing is always wrong is utterly asinine. Few things are always wrong, just as few are always right. It's about context.

I'm not the type to go around saying (or writing) "effing this, effing that" just for shock value or because I can. (Though I've always liked "because I can" as a reason.) I worked at Scout camp for five summers without once swearing in front of the campers or parents. Sometimes, swearing is not appropriate. Sometimes it is. If I look down and see that I'm about to put my foot on a big fat desert hairy scorpion on the hiking trail in the middle of the night, you can rest assured that I'm going to being saying "motherfucker" before I jump off the path and succumb to the willies. The key is knowing the difference between appropriate and inappropriate times/places/audiences.

This is why I try not to swear in front of small children. They've got no idea about when and where different language is appropriate. So if I slip and say "shit" in front of them, they think it's a cool new word and just suck it up into their little brains along with "b'bye" and "more". And once it slips in.... you just never know where it's going to slip out. With my own (hypothetical) kids, I don't think I'll worry about it too much, but you can't get other people's children to forget something they heard, or the fact that they heard it from you. And some people don't much like that. And I don't much like pissing people off for no good reason. So.

It's not about some language being "bad", it's about knowing when and why to apply all kinds of language. In the academic world (at least the parts I've experienced), they use the term "discourse areas" to describe the different worlds of communication we live in. For example - a kid growing up in a working class family with parents who speak English as a second language if at all, is going to need to speak very differently at home than he does while at school. For such a student, "school language" may be a whole new code to be broken, and is too often one that defeats him. In reverse, take a upper middle class white kid and stick him in the ESL household and see how well he survives. Each culture and sub-culture has its own code of language. One is not better than the other. It's all about context.

Language is control. Language is power. Language gives you the power to create, the power to move through this world, the power to control how people perceive you. I wish my students would grasp this concept.

**Of course, what originally wrote after reading this crit was something a little more explicit and a little less tactful. Of course, since I do have some measure of impulse control, and I realize he's new to this critting business, and I don't like to burn my own house (or crit circle) down, I deleted all that and put in the "thanks for the effort" post as mentioned above.

Where you can put that stick

So, as you may recall, in December we got a brand new, shiny, beautiful, Atlantic Blue Pearl, 2006 Subaru Outback. Standard transmission.

As you may also recall, I once learned how to drive stick, but only briefly, and not for any extended period of time, so my skills withered away before they got a chance to develop.

Here's an update:

The scene: me behind the wheel, Jay in the passenger seat, various college parking lots

me: *concentrating really hard, doing the 1st gear, stop, 1st gear, stop, 1st gear, park, reverse, 1st gear boogie.* I think I hate this.

Jay: You're doing fine.

*lurch*

Jay: Too fast on the clutch.

*rev*

Jay: Too much gas.

*stall*

Jay: Not enough gas.

*rev*

Jay:Too much gas.

*rev* *stall*

Jay: When in doubt, step on the clutch.

*evil glare*

Jay:You didn't even look when you backed up that time.

me: Yes I did. They're called mirrors.

Jay:You can't see everything in a mirror.

me: Right. You can tell because I back into people all the time.

Jay:That's not the point.

*rude hand gesture* *rev*

Jay:Too much gas.

*lurch*

Jay:No, you're still too fast on the clutch.

*stall* *rev*

me: Fuck

Jay:More gas.

me:Fuck you.

Jay:More gas, more gas.

*gives it more gas* *stalls*

Jay:If you think you're going to lose it, just press the clutch.

me:But you said more gas.

Jay:It's okay, just press the clutch.

*extremely evil glare* *stall*

Jay:More gas.

*stall*

Jay:Just press the clutch.

*stall*

Jay:More--

me:No, Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

*ebrake on, door open, lesson over*

Jay:Yeah, I think Nimbus has had enough of you. (said in extremely snotty tone while sniffing for clutch burn)

*slam* *slam*

me:YOU. AND. THE. HORSE.

*silence*

Jay:You're kind of cute when you're mad.

*evil glare plus rude gesture*

Jay:No, I mean it.

So. I think we're pretty much done with lessons. I can drive the damn thing. I just need practice. Real practice. Not in a parking lot practice. Preferably without Jay and his helpful comments. The World's Worst Passenger should not ever be a driving instructor.

Good thing he is cute.

Brain Backlog

I have about four new posts I want to write, and a dozen or so knitting pictures to post, and I haven't had a chance to get to any of it. Gah.

The trip to Maryland and Virginia was mahvelous. My sister does indeed seem to know every single person on the Washington and Lee campus, and they all know her in return. Eerie. Like visiting a movie star on set or something. Heh. I'm so proud of her, and mad jealous of her people skills.

The wedding was very very nice, even though Jay and I did have to refrain from laughing during the vows. Fortunately, Karen, the hottie bride, assured me that she had to get all her giggles out during the rehearsal, so I don't feel too bad. Saw a few people I had lost touch with post-graduation and am thrilled to have been able to spend time with again. I will totally be harassing them via email because they are awesome people and make me laugh constantly. And, as usual, even though it had been more than a year since Karen and I were in the same room, it felt like no time had passed at all once we got together. Thanks for reminding me how much I love you, chica. Mwah.

And now I must go prep for my 3pm class. This back to work thing really gets in the way of my free time, I must say.

the issue with no Internet chez moi

I have just spent the last 9 hours in front of the computer. Mostly online. I processed the submissions for the latest short story contest over at Writing Monkeys, transferred a crap load of debt from one nasty, pain in the a$$ credit card to one with a much friendlier online interface, caught up with email, read blogs, found a new blog, caught up with my crit group at Forward Motion, answer more email, searched restaurants and directions for the upcoming trip, read blogs, ogled yarn, checked back in at the two writing sites, did more email stuff, fooled with Yahoo!'s new beta maps, and at last, updated the blog.

No wonder I have a headache. Gah.

Creative Energy Elsewhere

I have been doing a lot of writing, just not in blog format. Several more email between the motherperson and myself... issues not entirely resolved, of course, but at least on steadier ground. My mom says that communication will be her project for the year.

I've finished the last of the in-laws gifts. Finally. Scarves for the women, hats for the men. Fortunately, as I mentioned, I love love love me some Malabrigo yarn, so it wasn't exactly torture to keep working with it. AND, as a bonus, Jay's dad wears silly hats. He put on this military-style black beret over the Turkeyday holiday... and it was just a wee bit too small... and I just about peed my pants laughing. And then I found out it really was HIS hat, and that he was wearing it on purpose... and then I just fell over I was laughing so hard. Heh. I laugh just thinking about it.

But anyway. Point is, I got to experiment with hat-making while doing Fred's hat, and I think it's pretty damn funny. Kind of has a Dr. Seuss vibe, with ear flaps ending in i-cord (like yarn rope) that curls outward, and a narrow cone on top with a tassel on the end... and the cone will stand up unless you knock it down on purpose... Like a chulla gone wrong. Heh.

I love clothing that makes me laugh.

I've also been working on my more serious endeavor of finishing the fantasy books. I'm making good progress on book 2, and have gone back to fix a few things in book 1. And yes, I know I should forget about book 1 until I finish book 2, but there were some details I needed to look up, and then there were some glaring mistakes I had to fix, and... you know how it goes. Maybe. I am working more on book 2, and only switching over to book 1 when I get stuck. Enh, whatever.

I have also got to find some 2006 calendars. We've still got the 2005 ones up all around the house and it's downright disorientating. Gah. We're leaving on Thursday for a wedding down in Baltimore. Though we're actually going to spend the first two nights in Lexington at K2's college. She's been asking me to come visit forever, and this is the first chance we've had to get there. Since she's a senior, I figured I didn't have any time to waste. So I'll be missing the bachelorette party, but I'll be there for the wedding. And that's the important part, right? Right? Hope so.

Education and Entertainments

Been enjoying the time to read and watch movies and knit stuff with school being out until January 17th. (Don't hate me... because I'm poor.) A brief review with recommendations:

The Forty Year Old Virgin: Oh. My. God. I had no idea this movie was so damn funny. I'd heard a little bit about it, but not much. So when I saw it in our local gas station/movie rental place, I picked it up with relatively low expectations. I don't think I've laughed so much at a movie since... well, can't remember when I've laughed so hard. Unless you find men offensive, you must see this movie. Totally could watch this three or four times more. Might even buy the DVD.

Malabrigo Yarn: I am so in love with this yarn, it's just not funny. It's like buttuh. So soft in my hands, such pretty colors, warm, soft, light weight. Gorgeous. After I finish off the rest of the xmas presents, I'm totally going to make myself a sweater out of this stuff. Love it.

Talyn, by Holly Lisle: Such a kick ass book. Holly's books are so complex, and her fantasy work is always so complete. Though I've found some of her past books (like Vincalis) to be a bit skeletal, I have to conclude that this was a result of publishing word count limits, and not her natural storytelling talents. In worlds as complex as the ones she creates, subtlety cannot be accomplished in 100,000 words. Talyn is one of those books that really makes me look at my own beliefs about the world, and what I think is right and wrong; it makes me shuffle through all that, rearranging a few bits here and there, and then helps me put it all back together again. So, if you're looking for a book that will challenge you to examine your own beliefs by way of reading an amazingly good story, check this one out.

Cunt: a declaration of independence, by Inga Muscio Okay, strange title, I agree. Catchy, though, neh? My sister, the women's studies major, gave me this book for christmas. It is not the kind of book you should swallow whole, by any means. (I won't give it to my BIL's GF for that reason... she thinks The Da Vinci Code was a major breakthrough for women... I'm not sure what she would do if she read this one.) I don't think the author intends this to be a guide to living life. She never says, "You should believe this. This is Truth." I rather thought that the purpose was to make the reader question their own beliefs, to really look around and think. It's funny and compeletely irreverent, and written in a conversational style that makes the book very accessible. I also like the way she includes references to other works in the manner of - Did that idea blow your mind? Well, check these sources for more. So many of the negative reviews on Amazon aim from stances of either intellectual indignation or else focus in one one or two statements, ignoring everything else. Muscio makes statements about abortion and religion that others may disagree with. But for the love... why the hell does everyone have to agree? No matter what your stance on christianity, if you look at the history and development of the Church, you have to acknowledge that the Church absorbed other "native" religions and supressed the worship of other deities. Looking at the objective historical/anthropological record doesn't seem to me to be "dissing" christianity. I took it as a "hey, look what came before this" challenge to the common perception of "this is the way it has always been and always should be" so prevalent in the arguments about rights for women, gays, lesbians, bis, trannys, etc. Anyway. Another mind opening book to consider.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by JK Rowling, read by Jim Dale No she did not end it that way. Oh my god. So had to happen, I see that. But oh my goodness. Love listening to the story while I knit.

Okay, I could go on... but I have other things to do before we go back to the Internetless refuge we call home.

Reprinted: a commentary on family communications

I was going to write a post on this subject, but I spent all my energy on an email reply to my mother instead. And then I realized that everything I had to say is pretty much in the email anyway. My sisters read this blog, but I was going to send them a copy of my email anyway.

So... an insight into my family relations:

-----------------

Thanks Momma

Yes, if you had said that you wanted to come to REI, we would have said, "Okay woman, then get your ass in gear and come with." But you said, "Well, I could take you down if you want." And since you always seem to have fifty other things going, we figured that we could take care of this by ourselves and not take up your time. When I called from the store, I asked, "Are there any plans for dinner? Because we're getting hungry and we don't want to go out if there are plans." And you told me to go ahead, whatever we wanted to do. So we did. Yet I am the rotten, exclusionary one here.

I am not used to getting your undivided attention - not since I can remember, in fact. Generally, I feel like I'm pretty far down on your list of priorities. Because I'm so used to hearing Kathy/Kate/othernickname can handle it, I just go ahead and do exactly that instead of waiting for you/anyone else to help out. I realized that you weren't going to figure out that I needed help with stuff about the time I was 14 or 15 and had exactly 3 pairs of raggedy underwear... for about 3 months. Finally took myself shopping and bought my own. I don't ask for help, because just like it doesn't occur to you to offer it to me, it doesn't occur to me to ask. Back in elementary school I used to be totally bewildered about how all the other kids would have these fantastic, professional-looking projects. I mean, how the hell did they manage to all be so good? The thought that maybe their parents were helping them never even occurred to me. Not once. And I'm not mentioning these things as a point of blame, but just to establish the pattern.

I think that's partly the reason that none of us can truly accept [my half-sister's daughter]'s presence. We know that it is the right thing for her, certainly. And we don't begrudge her the escape from the Churl. Objectively, I think [niece] is a pretty cool kid. But she's ahead of all of us on Mom's List of Priorities, and it's hard not to resent that.

With K3 - I look at it and think - hmmm... well, I asked her repeatedly to come out and visit me in Utah while she was still in high school, and somehow she never thought there would be anything to do, and so always put me off. From my perspective, this says "hanging out with my sister isn't enough to keep me entertained" and therefore, I figure that K3 prefers to be elsewhere rather than spend time in my company. Not an unreasonable conclusion, I think. When I am around her, she's either lighting up - smoking in a circle of non-smokers, which is incredibly rude and something that I was told (by other smoker friends) never to do when I was a smoker - or she is on her cell phone. Again giving the message that the people around her are less interesting and important than her friends. Yet if I say either of these things, I am judgmental and a bitch.

I feel like I hear you tell me how wonderful I am, how mature and capable, etcetera soforth and so on, but just as I really am starting to feel good about myself, you aim some low karate chop at my knees and I'm back on the floor in pain again. I don't like it. So next time you have a thought about what an ungrateful, stuck up, cruel and unusual daughter I am, can it. Keep it to yourself. Because I'm not taking that BS anymore. We pretend that you are the reasonable parent, but sometimes I am more wary of you than I am of father.

And I'm not too hard on Jay. I give him a lot of credit for returning year after year to a place and family full of bipolar-acting freaks. His family dynamic is so utterly different, it's just alien. But I don't take shit from him either. I didn't want him to feel more under attack than he already does around the Fam, so I try to conduct most of our personal business just between the two of us. And we had some talking to do at the airport, and I didn't want to put it off any longer, so that's why I didn't say, "Yeah, mom, come in and let's try to talk in the loud, crowded places this side of security." Also, I don't like crying in airports, and I was close enough as it was.

I don't understand how you think I am in the position to be hard on the rest of you. The only judgement I make is that I don't like to feel like crap, yet somehow I always do after spending time with some members of the family. I feel like I'm being held to some bizarre standard that no one takes the time to explain. You presented the wedding guest book with the explanation of don't worry if you don't like it, it's just something I picked up. So when I tell you that it's not really Jay's or my style, it's a little too girly, you snipe that I've always been so hard to please. I feel like I was set up. If you told me that you really liked this guest book and hoped it would work out for me, I would have said, "Hey, you know, I think this will do just fine."

With Christmas this year, I emailed you fairly early on with my specific preferences and an explanation about them - I wanted to spend time with the family, not watch everyone run in their own directions again. And at first, it seemed like you were on the same page. But then I get this list of all the people who just can't live without you, and so what I suggested simply wasn't possible. You don't include me on the list of people who couldn't live without you, so somewhere down the line, I stopped including myself on that list, too. Yet somehow, I end up being the judgemental bitch again. I don't get it.

I don't know what you think I'm like, or what you think I do in my "real" life. I can tell you that there are people who make fun of me for smiling all the time. Most of the time I'm a pretty happy, positive person. Don't know what else to tell you. I'm sorry that you don't know this about me, and that you seem to think I'm someone I'm not. But for as much as I might bitch about our cold, frozen north, and Jay's being sometimes clueless, I'm pretty happy with the way things are. I'm not you. Jay is not Dad. Please don't think we are.

I love you, and everyone else in the family, and I hope we figure out how to communicate as a family some day. You are all welcome to come visit whenever you like.

Happy New Year

-k1


---------------

It's taken me a long time to be able to write that letter. I'm at peace with every sentiment in it. And I've looked inward, and really thought about things, and I'm not angry about any of it. Some of it makes me a little sad. And I don't want to give the impression that my whole vacation was awful, because parts of it were very fun. Playing pool with my sisters and Jay and playing cards with my sisters and my mom figure quite high on my list of things I look forward to doing again. I just can't do the mental illness dance any more. I can't cope with the guilt trips and sulk fests. If you want to talk to me and tell me how you feel, we can communicate. But as I tell my students, I am not a psychic. If you want me to know something, you have to communicate it to me, either in conversation or in writing.

It's not as difficult as we were raised to believe.

Occupied

With the completion of the term, I've actucally had energy for other pursuits. Wrote another 6000 words on the trilogy, completed three critiques over at Forward Motion, and baked three new kinds of cookies from the Eating Well magazine recipes. Gingerbread bears/rocking horses/candy canes, thumbprint cookies (w/cherry and strawberry jams), and mandelbrot, which are evidently like yiddish biscotti. They all turned out pretty well, I think. Now they just have to survive the flight down to Pittsburgh. Figured I'd do a batch of brownies tonight.

D'oh... and I was supposed to write down the recipe for Jay to send to his grandmother. She took some home with her from Thanksgiving and evidently they went over well. Heh. Mental note: tonight, write down a copy of the recipe. It's one that I found in a cookbook that we picked up in Alaska in 2002 and I've been tweaking it ever since. I've been using measurements like "one of the small blue bowls full of sugar" and "a handful of..." so tonight actual measuring will need to happen.

So far for christmas presents, I've knit 4 scarves (well, 3 and a half) and 2 hats. Still need to do two more scarves and three more hats, but those can mostly wait until the New Year. Or rather, they are going to wait until the New Year, because there's no way I can get all that done this week. Mmm. No.

Skiing has been most lovely. Lots of fluffy cold white stuff over the last week or two. Jay's already been out... six or seven days. I think he's up to 128K for the season already. Sicko. Me? I'm at 3 days and about 24-25km total. I think. I don't really keep track of things like that. I'll leave that to Doctor Charts and Graphs.

Okay. Yes, I'm boring even myself with this stuff. Perhaps I'll be interesting again after the holidays. We leave tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if we'll have web access during the week we're gone.

Happy Holiday of Choice! I'm outta here.

Let it Snow

Many inches of the white stuff are falling outside my window. Bliss. Skiing this weekend will ROCK. We live a couple miles (about a 5 minute drive) from a kicking nordic center. If this keeps up, all the trails will be open.

Oh, this makes me happy. Sigh.

I am the devil

At least, that's what a few of my students are no doubt thinking right now.

But honestly, do they think I ENJOYED failing them? God no. Passing a student is much easier and less traumatic to all parties involved. But it would be absolutely irresponsible to do that.

Of the people who did not pass the class, I had a few very different reactions. One exploded at me, saying that the class was stupid, my assessment methods were unreasonable, no one else was looking for improvement as one of the criteria, that she was never taking this class again because it was a waste of her time... it went on. I showed her her objective score which was failing by all standards, but she went off in a huff before I could tell her that I was only looking for improvement as a last ditch effort to find a reason for her to pass. I didn't find it.

Another sat there quietly, turning red and then pale by turns. I wanted to pass her, I really did. And if grades were based purely on attendance and turning things in on time, then she would have had an A++. Sadly, I was more concerned with the writing quality and ability to revise and integrate information. In my syllabus, I state that students will not pass unless they participate meaningfully in the class. Not by any stretch of the imagination did she fulfil that requirement. But she just agreed with me, nodding, calm, and then went off to cry somewhere. (I know about the crying because another student told me.) I feel bad about this one, but she would have drowned in the next level. She's just not ready.

The last student listened to what I had to say as we looked over his final paper. He didn't bring any of his previous work with him as stated both in a handout, verbally, and online,(But I thought you had copies of all of it... No, I only made a copy of the paper you massively plagiarized.) and never completed the final essay because he missed the last day of class and evidently didn't check his email or the class webpage after that. I told him - three times - that there was no way I could give him credit based on the work that he had turned in, he just stared at me. Then he got up, muttered, "Whatever", and walked out.

Two students who had poor final papers, but who had clearly improved all term and who had been very active and commented intelligently during discussions, I gave a second chance. They have until Wednesday afternoon to rewrite the final paper and resubmit. If they fix the biggest errors, proving their ability to revise, they will pass.

However, I just heard today that one of those students self-mutilates to deal with stress, and evidently, she's been cutting. Some time last night, she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and her bathroom was covered in blood. She cut more than she intended, it seems. Shit shit shit. Shit. I don't think she was stressed over my class, but I just feel sick. My other students said that they tried to visit but were turned away, or I'd see if I could go visit her. She's such a bright star of a person, but I know she's had a rough time getting to where she is.

This entry has kind of morphed here. I didn't start out planning to mention her. I'm just worried. And wishing I had finished the day with one of the students who thought I was great, instead of one who thinks I'm Satan. Shit.

New car - Yay! Old car - oops...

This morning we picked up our brand new Subaru Outback. Pretty. Atlantic Blue Pearl. We have named her Nimbus. (Jay's cloud fetish showing.) And thanks to my dad, the bank owns very little of it. It's a manual transmission, so I have to relearn how to drive a stick. I learned in 2004 on Jay's old Subaru, but I haven't actually driven a manual since that summer, so I need a major refresher.

And I realize that I sound like a student essay here... been reading for grading all morning and the pattern starts to stick after a while. Gah. Shoot me.

Of course, we've been getting snow up here... looking out the window, I see it's just now stopped. Now, I like snow. It's very handy for xcountry skiing, makes the dark Vermont evenings look a little less dark, and looks so pretty on the trees and all that. However, I don't really care for the white stuff when it's on the freezy roads. And of course, that brings us to "old car... oops".

I generally don't drive in the snow. Jay is a borderline (ha! more like TOTAL) control freak, and it's easier for me to let him drive than it is to listen to him freaking out in the passenger seat. As a result, I haven't driven much in bad weather for a really long time. Sadly out of practice.

Roads didn't seem too bad on the way to the dealership this morning. I kept an eye on Jay's speeds to gauge how fast I could go on the way home. Unfortunately, it kept snowing while we were inside signing papers and making nice, and the conditions didn't exactly improve.

Because of my long lapse in manual driving, Jay had to drive the new car home, and I had to take my poor old Oldsmobile with its crap tires and faulty heat system (low traction and an icy windshield - Lucky me). I made it through the first intersection and up the hill to the Interstate on-ramp. And then... wheel turned, tires facing one way but continuing to slide instead of turn... sliding very gracefully, very gently, off the snow-covered pavement and onto the embankment. Thought for a moment that I would be lucky and the edge of snow and grass would stop me, but after a slight pause, I slid down the hill sideways.

Crap.

I will say this for Vermont. No fewer than 5 people stopped to see if we needed help. One guy even got some boards and things out of his truck to try to give my car some traction, and then helped push from behind, but no dice. Had to call the tow truck. Our only consolation was that we were definitely not alone in sliding off the road today. Tow truck comanies are raking in the bucks. Fifty from us, in fact. Sigh.

But we have out lovely new Nimbus, complete with the standard All Weather package that includes heated seats and heated windshield wipers. Oooh ahhhh. But I think we're still going to need to invest in snow tires.

I miss my mild western winters. Sniff.

Money - Tact + Alcohol = Aunt Ethel

So. Back to the neglected blog. Understandably, I think, I just couldn't string any sentences together last week after I finished. My fingers are just now regaining their feeling. But I'm back, and I will make an attempt to be slightly more interesting than I have been. (Sadly, this should be all that hard.)

As the title suggests, Aunt Ethel is not, perhaps, the most charming of women. Her husband left her millions when he died, and her son now manages the family fortunes, leaving Ethel to do... hell, I have no idea how the woman fills her days. Not doing charity work, I'm pretty sure.

She is a hardcore Republican, not because she believes in the values and ideology of the party, but because rich people are republicans and poor people are democrats. In Ethel's world, anyway. She is unabashedly racist, and treats us to her views on all those of non-western-european descent. There's no arguing with her, because the intake valve on her brain is entirely faulty. She only hears the things that you don't want her to hear. Usually things that start with "She's &*@^! nuts. Did you hear what she just said?!?!"

This year, she had us all write our initials on our plastic cups so we wouldn't waste so many. Good idea, I thought. However, when she looked at my initials (which are KEG, by the way... my students think that's hilarious), she says "But jayslastname doesn't start with "G"!" And when I replied with the usual comments about "married not adopted" and "decided not to change his name, so I decided that I wouldn't either..." She came back with "Well, I'm not saying that you're less of a person if you don't change your name...." If she weren't so comically over-the-top, I might have been offended. As it was, I just had to leave the room so I could laugh and not fall over in the kitchen. Heh.

Oh, and then when she found out what the "G" stands for, she busts out with "What? Are you a Jew or something?" Followed by a lovely rant on some of the Jewish people she knows and how dreadful they all are. I wish I could recreate the exchange, but my mind was so busy going :holy crap, she IS nuts. totally wacked. good lord, can I get in a word here?: that I wasn't paying close enough attention to retain the random insults she came up with. I do recall telling her that as far as I knew, I didn't have any Jewish ancestors, but that there were plenty of drunks and fools in the bunch, which was probably why I fit in so well with Jay's extended family. I don't think she really processed that, but Jean (her sister, Jay's g-ma) thought it was pretty funny.

And so Ethel's legend grows. We'll add this year's comedy to the time that she slurped some spilled King Louis Cognac from the counter "because it's too expensive to waste", the time that she commented on evil women who leave their husbands and steal other people's men while Jay's father's girlfriend was at the table, and countless other drunken and tactless comments that she's made over the years.

Ah, Ethel, just keep on telling it like it is. The Jersey gatherings wouldn't be the same without you.

Finished

With more than 4 hours to spare.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Just because I can write 23K in three days sure as hell doesn't mean I should.

I'm going home.